I couldn't possibly be off topic since I am responding to comments made by Abraham in another post on this thread. Not a word of it was plagarised either. I simply waxed eloquent at the time. Don't own a jet ski, sorry. My views regarding the rights of property owners are fairly absolute. The issue is not whether one person's rights are more important than someone elses, it is all about the nature and definition of property ownership. There are those who feel that ownership rights are all but nonexistant and that property owners should be satisfied with the priviledge of paying taxes on the property and administering it in a manner directed by the state, their neighbors, and visitors from outside the area. Needless to say, I am not among that group. My rights as property owner are more important than the rest because I own the property. Those too obtuse to understand this concept should definitely vacation elsewhere.

Dave, You own the land, not the lake. That's what is being trashed. Please justify the litter of land from owners & tourists. Lawn runoff of fertilizers & herbicides from the cottaqes, jet ski noise, power boat wakes that trash the loon nesting sites. Why does protesting the destruction of the features that probably attracted you to your property in the first place offend you & Antioch? What's natural about bluegrass lawns right to the water's edge?

Antioch, you sound like a person who doesn't know what position they should take. Quit waffling & post your opinion.

Three big cheers for Antioch. I could not have said it better. To add just a bit to his/her comments I must say that comments about "blue grass lawns to the waters edge" pretty much typify the real problem here. I may not own the lake, but I pay for having it there every year on my property tax bill. If I want to plant grass down to the waters edge, I see no reason why anyone in the peanut gallery should have anything much to say about it. The real problem here is that those who do not own property feel as though they should for some reason have a say about the property that other people do own. When you happen to own lake front property, there are even more people than would normaly be interested in telling you what to do. Put your boat back on the trailer and drive somewhere else.....please. We have enough trouble with our own home grown socialists and do not need those from other areas.

Go for it. You have the "right" to trash your part of what used to be the Northwoods. Common sense should say that you wouldn't be so short-sighted.

Cutting down the natural vegetation right down to the lake shore = erosion. The erosion is aggravated by large wakes from muscle boats that toss up large wakes. But then again, it's the right of some joker to run a 125 hp boat towing skiers on a 300 acre lake?

Fertilizer runoff from that green lawn on the cottages encourages weed growth along your shore and algae blooms in the lake. Now the swimming sucks, but the lawn should be just like home.

Crap, this must be about a 10 yard tangle of mono on my reel. I'll just cut it off & throw it overboard. Can you say loon or duck snares?

My son & I do on occasion fish from motorized boats, but we are alert to possible effects that our wake may cause to other boaters or the shoreline & adjust our speeds accordingly. Pontoon boat cruises are cool & an easy way to go fishing. We use tin split shot & jigs to avoid adding to the posibility of lead weights poisoning the water fowl.

My view of what constitutes the Northwoods is different than yours. My family made our choice & while it's not a desert island, it's obviously more rustic. I got on a soap box & offended you. Sorry for that. I get preachy when I start spouting off on a topic I really feel passionate about. But take a look at what you have & when folks trash the place, don't say it's their right. Please protect your turf.

"Silence belongs to the primitive scene. Without it the vision of an unchanged landscape means little more than rocks and trees and mountains. But with silence it has significance and meaning." Sigurd Olson, Wilderness Days.

There is nothing sacred about private property. You see the beginnings of it in our legal system per what was passed to our "founding fathers" per English philospher John Locke. No one ever complete owns anything physical in an unqualified sense.

Since than it has been a contentious issue. I must agree with a previous poster that your rights end when you begin to infringe upon the rights of others. This is pretty much a given in American society. Sometimes legally you can advance you own self interest at the expense of others, but don't expect them to applaude you for it. For example if you drill a well on your sacred one acre of land and begin pumping the aquafer dry to fuel your water bottling plant, don't expect all the surrounding landowners to acquiesce when their wells go dry.

"Recently the U.S. Supreme Court infuriated nearly all Americans with a 5-4 decision that permits the use of eminent domain, by a governmental body, to take private property for private development. (In many ways, this is nothing new. In Detroit, Poletown was razed by the city to make way for a General Motors factory.) People are outraged. In a New Hampshire poll 89 percent of Democrats, 90 percent of Republicans and 93 percent of independents oppose the court ruling."

If all the atheists left the United States it would lose 93% of the National Academy of Sciences but less than 1% of the prison population.

Really, as long as it is the 4th weekend, maybe New Years or some other special event, fine. Oh, one more requirement, lets get them over with by say 10:00 - 10:30 ish...

HOWEVER, the twit shooting one off every 5 minutes starting at 11 PM and Midnight is likely to get themselves in a while heap of trouble!!!!

Figured I'd come home for a nice weekend of reasonable quiet (I enjoy the rare occasion of jet skiing but try to be considerate of those around me and go out on the main bay, away from boats, etc. I also don't own one so it is very rare.). I didn't plan on being forced to "try" to sleep with the windows closed to help limit the noise...

I do believe (I'm sure I'm opening a can of worms), that the good Lord intended for those given the privilege (not the right) to own property to take care with it, along with any surroundings. Any property that we "own" is really on "loan" while we have an earthly life. Me thinks that no one has the right to trash what actually in on loan.

I never mentioned gardens, pets, or agriculture. Where did that come from?

Yes, the desert areas of CA & other western states are incredibly productive when irrigated. However the ever increasing demand for water can not always be met within their own aquifers. Water is diverted from other watersheds, other states. For most of the year the Colorado River doesn't reach the Pacific anymore.

I wonder if people will still be singing the praises of that area if/when they start making noises about building a pipeline from the Great Lakes to water the West.

Originally posted by antioch: Has it ever occured to you that grass and agriculture transformed the California Valley from an arid desert that was almost unliveable to to an area that is now actually liveable for human beings?

If we had put some attention into voluntarily stabilizing our human population we would not have to be converting habitat to support more humans. In the transformations to comfort more humans other species have been driven into extinction. And I will not even get into what happened to the original human populations in those areas with the early Spanish conquistadores arrived.

If history is any judge what people call the northwoods will be redone until it resembles that which they escaped from to get here.

If all the atheists left the United States it would lose 93% of the National Academy of Sciences but less than 1% of the prison population.

This thread has certainly brought out all aspects of the subject under discussion, including the downright idiotic. If the lord wants to give us his opinion on land use, I am sure that Kerry will authorize him as a member and then he can post his thoughts for us. In the meantime, I think it is just a bit on the presumptive side for anyone to tell us what they think he might say. As far as the pipeline from here to California, the thing was actualy proposed over 40 years ago. A few of the local governors indicated that in such a case, water would have to be treated the same way that California and other states view oil. When the western desert states found that they would have to pay for the water the plan died. As far as the human race limiting itself, what Dagger calls "voluntary" really means just what it sounds like....more government know-it-alls forcing the rest of us to do it their way. This is just about the only thing I can think of that is even more presumptuous than telling us what god wants......acting as though you are one.

Idiotic is usually the opinion of the single or narrow minded. Four year olds are taught in Sunday School to take care with the earth and natural resourses, because it is God's plan to have us do so. We don't take the land with us, it's on loan to us.

I can only shake my head in pitty for those so idiotic to not consider anything else other than what goes on in their own inflated minds. Ooops I just became single or narrow minded. I guess that's what happens when an opinion or cause is based only on silly emotion and no hard facts. Hard facts than exists for only a select or single few.

Or you can submit your comments by mail. The deadline for comments is August 26, 2005 and the address for sending comments is: WDNR-Bureau of Watershed Management, attn: Toni Herkert, P O Box 7921, Madison WI 53707-7921.

P.S. Sorry Abraham, there is no provision for starting a hunting season on jet skiers.

If all the atheists left the United States it would lose 93% of the National Academy of Sciences but less than 1% of the prison population.

Dave, It could be that these folks are on the fringe, but I found this site while looking to read more about the round goby invasion of Lake Michigan. (My son & I caught nothing but gobies north of Sturgeon Bay when fishing an old favorite spot for Smallmouth bass last month.)

[URL=http://www.greatlakesdirectory.org]

According to this group, steps are being taken to protect the waters of the Great Lakes from export, but there are still possibilities of that occurring.

The Supreme Court just decided that it was OK to condemn private property so that a "better" development can be built to enhance the economy of a city. Suppose that our gov't decides that in the interest of maintaining our economy it is CA's right to demand water from the Great Lakes? It's a stretch, but who knows?

I am not really sure how much of a stretch it might be. With private property rights proving to be little but non-existant at some levels of government, it will be an uphill battle to hold on to our water (no pun intended)as the years go by. Sooner or later the government will probably decide that it is in the best interests of the nation as a whole to ship our water out west. Better get in some serious fishing while you can.

If there is so much dispute over how our lakes and rivers should be used perhaps lake communities could all meet up for a nice potluck and try to agree on a set of guidelines (not laws) for the preservation and enjoyment of property. If all of your neighbors and local resorts agree to provide a copy of the guidelines(or post signs) and stick to them it could be a good thing and the wishes of all could be met. A vouluntary neighborhood assosiation has all kinds of benefits. . . knowing the people that live around you, crime prevention, friendship, sharing resources, and most of all RESPECT. For those that live on lakes with a neighborhood association an option is to purchase ALL of the land surrounding the lake and therefore limit the access of said lake to the land owners and their guests. The important thing is that nothing is forced upon anyone. If the regulations are unreasonable then they should be changed or not followed without fear of some kind of reprocussion unlike a law. Instead of whining about a problem all of the time respectfully request a change and people will probobly agree.

_______________ 'Originally posted by dagger: "If we had put some attention into voluntarily stabilizing our human population we would not have to be converting habitat to support more humans."

Antioch responds, "That sounds like population control to me! " _____________________

In your deleted post you inplied that offering an incentive to people to have fewer children constituted "control." In that we already have a system that pays people incentives through tax deductions and credits to have children, do you consider this "control" or to be forcing people to have children? If not how do you explain that it is "control" when offered as an incentive to not have children?

By the way all populations end up being "controlled." Humans have a choice (and perhaps an ethical duty) at least; do it voluntarily or let nature do it (disease, starvation, wars over dwindling resources,species extinction from destroying our host, etc.).